'Defining moment': George Osborne is booed by spectators at the Paralympics. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Alastair Campbell is a writer and was Tony Blair's spokesman and strategist

I hold no candle for George Osborne whatsoever. He has no strategic skills, is a hopeless chancellor, has no idea how most people have to live and his policies are failing and hurting millions. But I thought it was wrong to boo him, to such an extent that it became one of the defining moments of what have been the best Paralympics ever. I thought it was not only insulting to him but rude to the organisers of the Games.

Of course he is not popular, but I can't stand this anti-politics thing that is so prevalent. Without politics, we wouldn't have had the Games in the first place. The government I worked for won 2012 for London and a lot of that was down to Tony Blair. John Major brought in the lottery, which helped deliver so many medals. Tessa Jowell and Dick Caborn did tons for sport. Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson helped get London ready and, to be fair to Osborne, though he has cut plenty, he did not skimp on the Olympics when the coalition came to power. So I yield to nobody in my dislike of his politics and his policies but there are better ways to show it than rudeness. He was asked to present the medals and he did so. When Theresa May was booed the next day, I was sitting in the stadium and I did not join in. I thought it was just silly.

Danny Kelly is a writer and broadcaster on TalkSport

I wasn't there, but if I had been, I might have been tempted to have a little boo. For two reasons really. First, the whole thing looked rather polite and, when the dust settled, no more than a storm in an admittedly extremely large bowl. My detailed knowledge of fiscal policy is scant, so I neither presume to laud nor lash the chancellor. But clearly he's doing something (or nothing) that's getting right up the noses of a great many people. So they booed him. They didn't stop him performing his important duty; they didn't chase him through the streets of Stratford armed with rakes and torches; and, as far as I could see, very few of the faces were contorted with anything approaching anger, never mind hate.

Second, George Osborne, who everyone says could do with the occasional trip away from his gold-plated ivory tower, was here exposed to one of the most common, and historic, forms of British protest.

We boo – sometimes politely, occasionally roundly – stuff we don't like, understand or wish to hear from. When he went electric and changed popular culture for ever, Bob Dylan was booed in London and Manchester. Politicians of every stripe are habitually booed by even the most respectable trade unions: didn't Patricia Hewitt get the most terrible going over at the nurses' conference a few years ago? Jim Royle boos people appearing on the TV. It's a democracy, booing is a very non-violent expression of disapproval, and Mr Osborne appears none the worse for his very public upbraiding.

AC: I don't think he was "none the worse". He tried to laugh it off, but my expert body language reading skills tell me he was hurt. The Olympics have made everyone friendlier, warmer, and suddenly he realised he wasn't part of that. Not nice. The thing about politicians in Britain is that they are out there, you can lobby them, get close to them, there are loads of ways you can protest against them, and booing is a pretty weak way of doing it. Also in the examples you give, they at least had the chance to answer back because they had a microphone. They could make a point, argue back. George just had to grin and bear it.

Also, you say politicians get routinely booed, but actually it is quite rare. I guess the most famous protest of Tony Blair's time as PM was when the Women's Institute booed and slow handclapped him at Wembley Arena. They were apparently angry that he made a political speech. Perhaps they hadn't been aware he was a politician. The media went on about how they were speaking for middle England. They weren't. They were just rude and attention-seeking, and they all got caught up in the moment. We should confine booing in sports arenas to sport. I love a good boo as much as the next football fan. How else can you tell the ref he is blind, the dirty tackler he is dirty, Owen Coyle that he was wrong to leave Burnley?

DK: The cynical part of me thinks that, if Osborne was hurt, it wasn't because he felt that 80,000 folk disagreed with his policies, but because he'd failed to garner his share of the Olympic/Paralympic stardust that had been showered on other politicians. He is bright enough, I assume, to know that the booing does actually represent a very real problem for the Tories.

My experience at Olympic events has been that the audience was largely middle England and middle class; if these folk are throwing rotten tomatoes, then the government's electoral prospects must be as bleak as the outlook for Portsmouth FC. In truth, these solid citizens don't strike me as natural booers of any kind.

I wonder if the fact that they were in a sports stadium had anything to do with it? Not the freedom from personal responsibility (for decorum, politeness, niceness etc) that that mass anonymity affords, but maybe some kind of learned behaviour. Sports crowds boo, so we'll do it too.

Even that simplistic truth is nowadays challenged. My own team, Tottenham, have been booed off the pitch after drawing the opening two home games of the season. There has followed much online hand-wringing and twittery garment-rending about the etiquette and effectiveness of such protest. Avatars have turned puce; virtual fists have been shaken. It seems that, far from the Olympic stadium and Mr O's problems, people, football fans in particular, take booing very seriously. No surprise: this captive/addicted audience really doesn't have any other way to express its displeasure.

AC: They do though, and I hope they take it. They can join other parties, they can join campaign groups, they can write to MPs and newspapers, they can get involved. They can turn up at an Osborne speech and boo when he at least has the chance to engage with their arguments. And of course they can vote when election time comes around.

Clearly the government is in a lot of political trouble, but I can remember people saying the Women's Institute was the beginning of the end for TB and we went on to win another massive majority. I looked at Twitter after Osborne was booed and the fact of the booing was the main thing. There wasn't that much political debate. Insofar as there was, it was the cuts to benefits and the new testing for disability benefits that dominated, but I'm not sure that was why he was being booed.

You're right, though, about him feeling frustrated that the Olympic stardust has not gone his way. It is a feat of amazing strategic incompetence to preside over the best thing to have happened in our lifetime, sports-wise, and the public feels it has nothing to do with the government. Boris Johnson was a lot less responsible for the success of the Games than other politicians, but his positivity and his larger-than-life personality made sure he was the only Tory who caught the mood. Cameron and Osborne are all about austerity, negativity, schools are shit, hospitals are shit, the police are shit, that's why we have to bring in these barmy right-wing reforms. As for your Tottenham problem, it is simple: you had a good manager and got rid of him, and now you have a less good manager whose voice is almost as annoying as Osborne's. Like the country had a good party in charge, and now we don't. But don't just boo. Do something that might actually get them out.

DK: Of course the politically engaged have dozens of means of voicing dissent; I was referring to the poor, enslaved football fans. In any event, your analysis of Tottenham shows how much the protocol surrounding all this communication stuff continues to change. Twenty years ago, the very soul of following a team was that it gave you full licence (no, an actual responsibility!) to castigate, denigrate and generally thumb your nose at your rivals. That's all changed. As my shows on TalkSport most nights prove, nowadays, if you dare utter an opinion about a club other than the one you support, you are accused of the new-fangled catch-all offence of "disrespect". All tosh, of course; sport, like politics and life, is rough and tumble.

We have laws to show us where the boundaries are; for everything, and everyone, else, I usually apply the tried and tested heat/kitchen model.

Disrespectful or not (I suspect the former!), you're right about André Vilas Boas's voice. His basso profundo growl is supposed, I think, to mimic Clint Eastwood; instead, it ends up like one of those monotone rumbles that suggest the dishwasher is on its last legs. In the end, this argument is all about keeping open as many conduits for free speech – however rudely and ineffectively they are sometimes used – as possible.

As for the chancellor; despite all your cogent points, I still might have had a teensy weensy boo. After all, aren't the Olympics and Paralympics all about taking part?